About Us » Board of Directors
Jake Tarr, Chairman of the Board
Jake Tarr is a Managing Director with Kinetic Ventures. His investment activities focus on outsourcing, billing and transaction software and customer care/service opportunities. In addition to SmartSynch, he is a Director of Automated Power Exchange and Peace Software. Before joining Kinetic in 1987, Tarr held positions at Goldman, Sachs & Company and the Bank of New York, working in corporate finance and currency trading. He received an MBA from Harvard Business School and undergraduate degree from Roanoke College.
Stephen D. Johnston
Stephen Johnston currently serves as CEO of SmartSynch. He joined SmartSynch in 2000 prior to the commercial launch of our first SmartMeter and has led the company as Chief Executive Officer since 2004. Before joining SmartSynch, Stephen spent seven years as an investment banker with Wachovia Securities in Charlotte and Atlanta, where he worked with companies in various industries developing complex corporate finance solutions. Stephen was a Hearin-Hess scholar at the University of Mississippi and graduated with degrees in Banking and Finance and Managerial Finance. He serves on the Board of Momentum Mississippi, an advisory Board created by Governor Haley Barbour to set economic development priorities for the state of Mississippi. He also serves on the University of Mississippi Research Foundation Board. He is a member of Young President’s Organization and is also an active participant in numerous community service and educational activities.
Cam Lanier
Cam Lanier serves as Chairman of ITC Holding Company, LLC, through which he made a number of noteworthy early stage investments in telecom, technology and financial services related companies. Before forming ITC, Lanier helped form Interstate Communications (Telecom*USA), which grew to be the fourth largest long-distance provider before it was sold to MCI in 1990 for $1.2 billion. Lanier was later the founding investor and Chairman of PowerTel. PowerTel was acquired by Deutsche Telecom for $4.2 billion in 2000. Additionally, Lanier was the founding investor of Mindspring Enterprises, a pioneer in the Internet Service Provider arena that was valued at $1 billion when it merged with Earthlink. He was also the founding investor in Firethorn, a mobile payments company that was acquired in the fall of 2007 by Qualcomm for over $200 million.
John J. MacWilliams
John MacWilliams is a partner of The Tremont Group, LLC, a private investment firm based in Newton, Massachusetts. He was a founding Partner in 1993 of The Beacon Group, a private investment firm located in New York, which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2000. Mr. MacWilliams was also partner and co-head of The Beacon Group Energy Funds, a portfolio of over 30 private equity investments globally, throughout the energy industry, ranging from traditional (oil & gas, coal mining, petrochemicals, pipelines), to early-stage venture (micro-turbines, flywheels, power technology, fuel cells, environmental controls). Most recently, he was a Partner with JPMorgan Partners, the private equity affiliate of JPMorgan Chase. Prior to the formation of The Beacon Group, Mr. MacWilliams was with Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was head of Goldman Sachs' international structured finance group and was based in London. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he was an attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Alliance Resource Partners, LP, of Compagnie Generale de Geophysique, Longhorn Partners Pipeline, L.P., Soft Switching Technologies, Inc., The Massachusetts Mentoring Partnership, The Christopher Reeve Foundation, and the Alumni Council of Phillips Academy Andover. Mr. MacWilliams holds a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Glenn L. McCullough, Jr.
Glenn L. McCullough, Jr. has more than 25 years of experience in the utility industry stemming from eight years of public service and 14 years in private business. He served as chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors from 2001 through 2005, where he focused on achieving corporate excellence in the generation and transmission of electric power, stewardship of the Tennessee River system and the environment and regional economic development. In June 1997, McCullough was elected Tupelo, Mississippi’s 23rd mayor. During his term, the city of Tupelo received the Innovations in Municipal Government award from the John C. Stennis Institute of Government and earned the 1999 All-America City award from the National Civic League. In 1992, McCullough was appointed director of the Mississippi office of the Appalachian Regional Commission. During his tenure, he enhanced the commitment to technical skills training, physical infrastructure improvements and industrial-park development. McCullough serves on the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, California; as Chairman of the Board of Directors for NuVision Engineering, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and as a director for the Mississippi Technology Alliance. McCullough holds a degree in agricultural economics from Mississippi State University.
John N. Palmer
John N. Palmer was sworn in as Ambassador to Portugal in November of 2001. He formed Mobile Communications Corporation of America (MCCA) in 1973, and led the company to become a significant force in the cellular telephone industry. He eventually sold MCAA to BellSouth in 1989 but retained certain business that became SkyTel Communications, a leader in advanced wireless messaging that deployed the first nationwide two-way wireless messaging network. Ambassador Palmer served as Chairman of SkyTel until its sale to MCI WorldCom in 1999. Among many other professional accomplishments, Ambassador Palmer has served on the President's Export Council as a Private Sector Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce and as a Private Sector Trade Advisor to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. He was a member of the boards of three New York Stock Exchange companies, AmSouth Bancorporation, EastGroup, and Entergy Corporation. Ambassador Palmer's civic leadership efforts included several board memberships: Chairman of the National Trustees of the National Symphony Orchestra; the Institute for Technology Development (ITD); Foundation for the Mid-South; Trustee of Millsaps College; and President and Director for the University of Mississippi Foundation. He also served as Chairman-Elect of the Mississippi Economic Council. Ambassador Palmer was also President of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and Telocator, both national trade associations. He is a past member of the Young President's Organization and the Chief Executives Organization. Ambassador Palmer is currently a member of the Momentum Mississippi Steering Committee and Co-Chair of the Technology Development and Transfer Committee of Momentum Mississippi. Ambassador Palmer holds BA and MBA degrees from the University of Mississippi. He and his wife Clementine have four grown children.
Henri Arif
Henri Arif is a senior member of the cleantech and renewable energy team for the Customized Fund Investment Group at Credit Suisse. Prior to his work with CFIG, Henri was the Managing Director and principal at Edge Chemicals LLC, a physical commodities NY based trading firm, where he developed an international trading activity in Ethanol and Biodiesel as founder of the company's renewable energies side of the business in 2001. Prior to that he was an executive board member and senior manager at a private family holding company, with activities in the Chemical and Petrochemical manufacturing industry, after having held specific positions at the operational and commercial levels of the business. Henri started his career at IBM in France and holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and an M.S. in Operations Management from Boston University.
